Given his blue-collar ways, Tracy Claeys rushed to buy a new suit jacket this week to wear at his introductory news conference Wednesday as Minnesota’s new head football coach.

“I had to hurry out and get this done,” Claeys said of the coat, but that statement could have been in reference to the speed in which his three-year, $4.5 million contract was reached.

When Jerry Kill resigned two weeks ago because of setbacks in treating his epilepsy, Claeys was named interim head coach and immediately stated his desire to be the next Gophers coach. Claeys declined to use an agent in negotiations, while the U didn’t conduct an external search before coming to terms with Claeys.

“No need for anything else; we got it done,” Claeys said.

Claeys’ salary for the rest of the year will be $1.3 million, prorated to Oct. 28 when he was named interim coach. His new, three-year contract begins Feb. 1, and his salary will increase $100,000 in each of the deal’s three years: to $1.4 million in 2016, $1.5 million in 2017 and $1.6 million in 2018.

“I think we were all comfortable with where we landed,” interim athletics director Beth Goetz said.

Claeys, of Clay Center, Kan., was Kill’s assistant for 21 years and his defensive coordinator in Minnesota since 2011. Claeys was acting head coach for seven games in 2013 when Kill took a leave of absence to deal with his seizures.

Claeys said Kill and his staff had compiled a book packed with information on how to run a football program for when change occurred, such as an assistant being promoted elsewhere.

“It’s a great honor to follow a guy that trained all of us very well in coach Kill,” Claeys said. “I can’t wait to actually get this over and get started officially.”

This season as interim head coach, Claeys is 0-2, with the Gophers losing to No. 2 Ohio State 28-14 last week and 29-26 to No. 15 Michigan on Oct. 31. The Gophers (4-5, 1-4 Big Ten) close out the regular season with games at No. 8 Iowa on Saturday night and at TCF Bank Stadium against Illinois on Nov. 21 and Wisconsin on Nov. 28.

Claeys said he spoke with Kill on Tuesday night and joked about trying to get Kill to take the last two losses on his record “since I’m officially starting (Wednesday).”

After a tearful goodbye to Kill exactly two weeks ago, U supporters laughed at Claeys’ quip.

Kaler and Goetz were primarily responsible for the hire, but Johnson said the board was in “virtually unanimous approval” of Claeys.

“I think what’s important in this is it puts stability into the program as far as recruiting, as far as fans, and puts stability for the players as we go into the season here and finish up the last three games,” Johnson said.

Claeys had requested a decision on his future be made by mid-November to limit impact on recruiting, which picks up in December.

The Gophers have oral commitments from 17 players, including three four-star recruits, in their 2016 recruiting class. Their class is nationally ranked No. 37 by Rivals and 247 Sports and No. 31 by Scout.

Eden Prairie High School linebacker Carter Coughlin is considered the No. 1 recruit in Minnesota and one of the four-star recruits in the 2016 class. He threw his support behind Claeys once Kill stepped down.

“He always seems happy when I talk to him, but he also seems super focused and laser sharp,” Coughlin said. “He’s a mastermind. The defensive schemes and all that kind of stuff, it’s pretty remarkable. I think he’s undoubtedly the best man to lead this program, besides coach Kill.”

As a first-time head coach, Claeys’ $1.4 million pay next year will be less than half the average salary for Big Ten coaches: $3 million a year in 2015, according to the USA Today database.

Claeys’ salary next season will place him 10th among current head coaches in the 14-team Big Ten. Kill was going to make $2.5 million, seventh-most in the Big Ten, this year before resigning and taking an $800,000 buyout.

Claeys, 46, was being paid $600,000 as defensive coordinator. In his new contract, his buyout without just cause will be about $500,000 next year and $250,000 in 2017.

Goetz said she, Kaler and their staff spent the past couple of weeks evaluating their options after Kill’s sudden resignation.

“We believed in Tracy and his leadership and his abilities to run this football program from the beginning, but with any hire of this magnitude it’s really important that you do your due diligence,” Goetz said.

Goetz said the assistant coaches, many of whom have been with Kill and Claeys for more than a decade, are under contract through the end of January.

Secondary coach Jay Sawvel has been handling most of the defensive alignment calls the past two weeks, but Claeys said he would wait until the end of the season to determine staff changes.

In 2013, Claeys was the acting head coach and oversaw a four-game Big Ten winning streak and a 4-3 record overall.

Claeys joined Kill’s staff at Saginaw Valley State, a Division II school in Michigan, in 1995 and helped him turn around programs at Southern Illinois and Northern Illinois. Kill said after his resignation that it was important to hire Claeys as head coach to keep his long-tenured staff together at Minnesota.

Johnson said Claeys is a “tried and tested” defensive coordinator, and there was no need for an internal or external search committee.

“That costs money, especially the external, we didn’t spend any money, we didn’t spend any money on attorneys,” Johnson said. “So I think that is precedent-setting for negotiations in the future, and it can be done without an extra cost to the university and the department.”

But Johnson said he didn’t know if there would be an external search firm to find the new athletics director after Norwood Teague stepped down in August amid sexual harassment allegations. The U used Parker Executive Search in Atlanta to hire Teague, and sexual harassment claims were not disclosed.

“That will be determined by the president as the direction he wants to go in that regard,” Johnson said. “There could be (or) could not be.”

Claeys said it doesn’t concern him that there isn’t a full-time AD.

“I’m a pretty good people person, and I think I could work for a bunch of different personalities the way I am,” he said.

Claeys lists former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight as one of his top coaching mentors.

Knight won three NCAA titles, but his career included an ugly chair-throwing incident during a game in 1985. While the soft-spoken Claeys is unlikely to ever be seen hurling chairs, he believes in a firm approach similar to Knight’s.

“Every now and then that kick in the butt gets a lot more done than a pat on the back,” Claeys said. “You just can’t do it all the time. I think kids want discipline, and if you don’t demand a lot from kids, then you are cheating them. It’s how you handle them, and again, it’s a personality thing.”

Like Knight, Claeys prefers to wear sweaters over sports coats.

Claeys’ sister Teresa Claeys said Tracy is the same laid-back man he was as a boy growing up in their rural farming town.

“He’s very humble,” Teresa said. “He’s very straightforward. Has never been one to get very cranked up. His persona for football is different, and the way people perceive him is different. He’s not a run-up-and-down-the-sideline, throw-your-headphones, yell-and-scream kind of guy. He will sit back and take it in and look at what happened and what can we do to make that better. He’s always thinking ahead.”

Gophers quarterback coach Jim Zebrowski said Kill and Claeys have different personalities but the same values. Claeys is more laid back and claims not to read local sports coverage, while Kill could bristle at criticism. But both Kill and Claeys believe in an honest, hard-working approach.

“He jokes around and is one of the more intelligent guys I’ve ever met,” Zebrowski said of Claeys.

Claeys, who earned a secondary education degree from Kansas State in 1994, incorporates analytics into his coaching approach. During his first coaching job at Sante Fe Trail High School in Carbondale, Kan., he also taught math courses.

Last week, Claeys said probability factors into things such as the opening coin toss. When he wins, he said he elects to receive because that provides his team added probability of getting another possession at the end of the game.

Other coaches, such as Kill, often defer their choice to the second half or decide based on the wind’s direction or if their offense or defense is better.

Over the past two weeks, Claeys has gotten more involved in the offense and has sat in meetings with assistant coaches. Zebrowski said there have been benefits in pointing out opposing defenses’ weaknesses in zone coverage or when quarterback Mitch Leidner might have an opening to tuck the ball and run.

“He can help from the defensive side,” Zebrowski said. “It’s been really good.”

Andy Greder covers the Gophers and Minnesota United for the Pioneer Press. Since joining the paper full time in November 2013, he has also covered the Timberwolves as a beat and spot duty from the Vikings to high schools. He was a part-time breaking news reporter at the Pioneer Press from 2011-13, when he was also a freelance writer and organic farmer. He started at the Duluth News Tribune in 2006, covering sports, news and business until living abroad in 2010.

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